Papa's Tomato Pies of Trenton challenges NYC shop for a place in pizza history

Andrew Miller/For The TimesDonnie Azzaro tosses the dough for a pizza in the kitchen at Papa's Tomato Pies in Trenton on Thursday, July 28, 2011.

TRENTON — A culinary debate is heating up this summer over who can claim the title of oldest pizzeria in the country, with local favorite Papa’s Tomato Pies taking on a renowned Manhattan mainstay.

“This is the oldest family-run pizza restaurant in the United States,” Papa’s proprietor Nick Azzaro said last week, between taking orders and chatting with customers. He turned to a wall of photos and grabbed a black-and-white picture of him and his grandfather sitting outside Papa’s Tomato Pies on Chambers Street in the 1940s.

Azzaro’s grandfather Giuseppe “Joe” Papa opened the Trenton restaurant in 1912, but he wasn’t the first pizzeria in America at that time.

“There’s no argument. We’re the first and we’re the oldest,” said John Brescio, co-owner of Lombardi’s pizza, which started up in New York City in 1905.

There’s little doubt that Lombardi’s was the first restaurant in America to sell the beloved tomato pie. But after closely reading the New York pizzeria’s website, Azzaro now asserts that it is Papa’s — not Lombardi’s — that can stake claim to being the oldest.

“They’re boasting that they closed for 10 years. And ‘family-owned’ — that, I can say, because that guy bought it from somebody else,” Azzaro said. “This is their web site. I had nothing to do with it.”

Lombardi’s stopped doing business in 1984 and reopened in 1994 after the restaurant was purchased by Brescio, a friend of the Lombardi family, according to the website.

Brescio admitted that Lombardi’s didn’t do any over-the-counter business in the years it was closed, but said the Lombardi family still prepared pizzas there.

But that’s not good enough for Azzaro.

Unlike Lombardi’s, the closest Papa’s ever came to shutting down was in 1963.

The restaurant at 804 Chambers St. closed for a couple of days when a fire badly damaged the property, Azzaro said.

After the fire, a relative allowed Papa’s family to take over an unused restaurant in the neighborhood, where the family kept the business in operation.

“We put the phone over there. We put a new oven over there. It took us maybe a week, not even. We had to change everything, bing-bang-boom,” Azzaro said.

“We reopened over there until this place was remodeled, and we moved back here.”

After nearly a hundred years and thousands of tomato pies, Papa’s has matured from a neighborhood joint to Trenton tradition for some customers, the proprietors say.

“My favorite is when we have customers who are now in California or Kansas, or wherever, who stop by with their luggage to order a pie before they go back,” said Nick’s son Donnie Azzaro, a third generation American pizza maker who has been pounding out pies at Papa’s for 25 years.

Beyond the Azzaros’ stories, there are artifacts on display at the restaurant that prove Papa’s past, including an old matchbook with its original 5-digit telephone number, the retired spoon that has been worn away by the eroding force of decades of tomato sauce, and hundreds of photos of family and customers.

Though Brescio played down the dispute over the title, he challenged anyone to travel to Manhattan to taste his pizza.

“I want to tickle your tastebuds,” Brescio said.

Azzaro said he thought it would be wise to refuse the invitation.

“You know I’m not going to New York, right?” he said. “You know those guys. I’m likely to come home in a box.”